Visiting Ireland’s Cliffs of Moher {Travel Recap}

Hello, hello!

Today is my last recap from my trip last month to Ireland. So far I’ve talked about my favorite attractions & fun in Dublin and my Dublin vegetarian eating guide… and today I’m back with a recap of my visit to the Cliffs of Moher!

Funny enough, I’m putting together this travel post as I’m currently 40,000 feet in the air en route to NYC. I’m heading east to my home state of New Jersey for lots of wedding festivities: I’m attending  2 friends’ weddings this weekend and a bachelorette party the following weekend, and also have some bridesmaids dress shopping from my brother’s upcoming wedding planned.

Of course, there will be lots of family time as well. I usually try to see my parents and the rest of my east coast-based family every couple of months, but I’m on a roll because this will be the third month in a row that I’ve seen them. Yay for family time!

But I digress, back to my most recent Euro trip! When I planned my trip to Ireland, I knew that I wouldn’t have too much time to do sightseeing outside of Dublin. One place that I really wanted to see during my trip was the Cliffs of Moher. I had seen plenty of travel sites and movies featuring it, and had visions of the beautiful green cliffs.

Since the Cliffs of Moher is a solid 3+ hours away from Dublin, I decided to do a travel tour. With a pretty busy trip schedule, it seemed like it would be my only chance to see the Irish countryside. An all-day tour became the plan, and my sister Kelsey and cousin Alanna joined me for what became a memorable travel day!

I decided to book a tour with Paddywagon Tours, which seemed like a popular Irish tour company that offers a variety of options. I easily booked with them in advance online. Early morning, we walked to a meeting spot in a Dublin city center point and were greeted by a very prompt tour guide who was full of one-liners throughout the day, including: “How do you know an Irishman is lying? If their lips are moving!”

Since the Cliffs of Moher is on the west coast of Ireland and Dublin is on the east coast of Ireland, we had a nice long bus drive to get there. Our first real stop (that wasn’t just a restroom stop) was to the harbor village of Kinvara.

It was a quaint little town, and we found a cute healthy living shop there where we picked up a few random healthy foods – including local Irish honey and crackers to snack on. This is also when the dreary, rainy day began.

After gazing at the green Irish countryside for awhile (lots of cows and sheep everywhere!), we arrived on the west coast and drove along the shores of Galway Bay via the “Wild Atlantic Way” – a driving route that follows the entire West Coast of Ireland. We made our way through the Burren and stopped at what’s called the “Mini Cliffs” to check out the view and take a few photos.

I thought that I was smart to both bring an umbrella and wear a hood, but the wind started to pick up at the Mini Cliffs and broke my umbrella, which I was letting my sister use. This picture pretty much sums it up:

Our next stop on the tour was to the town of Doolin, where we had a bunch of different options for lunch – including two places that had vegetarian food.
We elected to eat at a cafe, where I had a veggie bagel sandwich with a few salads on the side. The salads looked good, but more or less lacked flavor and spice.

After driving some more, we finally made it to the Cliffs of Moher. The rain was moving in stronger, but we got a few minutes of a gorgeous view before the fog rolled in.

My Cliffs of Moher experience was a reminder that you can’t control Mother Nature in the least bit. The tour stopped there for 90 minutes, so were planning on doing a cliffs coastal walk and some yoga…

…but as soon as we got there, we realized that just wasn’t happening. The rain was coming in sideways, the wind was hitting strong, and by the end, we were cold and wet.

It was pretty comical because none of us had enough clothing to cover up with – especially my sister and cousin. The above photo was pretty much the only one I took of myself. I was feeling like a wet dog, but even with the crappy weather, the Cliffs of Moher was a sight to see!

These cows have a pretty sweet life, eh? They’re hanging out on the coastal walk… which turned out to be closed anyways due to erosion making the trail too dangerous.

Unfortunately we couldn’t hang out outside for too long due to the weather worsening, so we explored the visitor center and museum until it was time to go.

On the way home, we stopped at the Bunratty Castle to check it out before heading back to Dublin around 7:30 pm, when we got changed out of our damp clothing, freshened up, and headed out to Dublin pubs for the night!

So what did I think of Paddywagon Tours?

• Overall it was a good way to see the Cliffs of Moher and countryside when staying on the other side of Ireland in Dublin.
• I could have gone without maybe 2 of the stops to shorten the tour a bit (because I don’t have to pee every hour!).
• I thought the timing and scheduling of things was a bit weird, i.e. we stopped at the Bunratty Castle, which cost $ to enter and was already closed.

Tell me.. Have you been to the Cliffs of Moher or is it on your bucket list? Have you had any memorable vacation weather snafus?